Kalifornia (6 page)

“There’s more, sir,” said Cornelius.

“The baby Figueroa landed safely, as far as we know.
Unfortunately, no one knows much. The unidentified wagon vanished, along with
the child. Until she’s found, the story of the Figueroa baby, like the plot of ‘Poppy
on the Run,’ will be shrouded in mystery.”

No one in Alfredo’s office spoke.

“Is this a publicity stunt dreamed up by Poppy’s producers?” the
newscaster asked. “Another plot twist awaiting resolution in a future episode?
No one is saying at this time, particularly not the program’s creator, hot new
wirist Clarence Starko. Starko is busy tonight, apparently coordinating search
efforts and comforting the infant’s mother, glamorous Poppy Figueroa.”

And here an insert appeared, a wall-sized image of Poppy slumped
with shut eyes against a dirty brick wall, her head lolling sideways as two
halves of a silver vial fell out of her palms onto slimy asphalt.

“My God,” Sandy whispered. “All this going on and she’s twisted?”

“This is Newsbody Ninety, ‘Facing the Facts’ live from Snozay.”

The image switched to another live report, a male Newsbody in a
party hat covering the bicentennial opening of a databank or yet another
habimall.

“Whoa,” said Ferdinand. “Way tawdry. Hella dramatic.”

Alfredo shut off the picture. Waves crashed against the wall. In
all this time, the moon had hardly moved. Yep, I’m behind this, it seemed to
say. This and every other sad, sour development.

Alfredo turned on his sealman. “You knew and didn’t tell me?”

Cornelius trembled visibly. Sandy moved closer and put a hand on
his shoulder. “Dad . . .”

“I assure you, sir, I knew next to nothing. I’m as amazed as you
are to learn the details. It . . . it seems impossible.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Alfredo asked them all. “Why won’t she
come home even now? She needs our help more than ever.”

Ferdinand stood up, lit a kelpie, and blew yellow iodinic smoke
across the room. “Maybe she’s afraid to face you, Pop. After all, she just
wazzed your investment.”

Alfredo slumped over his desk. “I never should have listened to
her. Giving birth in the middle of a thriller. It just isn’t done! She has the
tropes of the grand tragedians. She’s a dramatic actress, not . . . 
not a human target!
This,
children, is what the industry does to you when you go up against it alone. Oh,
Chevy Chase was right. Hollywood eats its young. We were so good together; we
kept each other safe and sane. That’s all Poppy knows. She can’t handle
independence. She grew up in a troupe, with a whole company to cushion her. I
tried to warn her how hard it is alone.”

“Who listens to you?” said Miranda. “Look at yourself, skulking
around, afraid any moment someone’ll find you out and boot you out of the boss’s
chair. Are you really happy sitting here in a seascraper? Are any of us happy
since we got out of the wires?”

“Is that what we were?” Sandy said. “Happy?”

She sneered at him. “You were only happy when you were ozoned or
twisted, or popping your peenie in a Dyadic duo. Which was most of the time.”

“That only happened once!” he shouted, making himself hoarse.

Alfredo’s overdramatic sobs cut through their argument. He hung
over the desk with his face in his hands.

“I thought Calafia would bring us back together. She was your
mother’s last project before . . . I thought it would be
like having a little bit of Marjorie here with us again.”

“Oh, wonderful idea,” Miranda said. “A born S/R. Just the sort of
thing to take our minds off the wires. What good is that baby anyway, except to
star in her own show? How’s that gonna help us? She’s just competition. You
think anyone listened to the Beatles once they heard Ringo work solo?”

“We . . . we have to educate her. She’ll grow
up in the company of fine actors. Just think of what she might do.”

“She might hate us all, for starters. Excuse me, Alf, but I don’t
see you as any great paternal programmer.”

But Alfredo was deep in a trance of delusion and hope. “She’ll be
such a beautiful child. We’ll find her, wherever she is. If there’s a
kidnapper, we’ll pay the ransom. It’s just a matter of time till she’s back
with us. Marjorie’s little angel . . . ”

“My God,” said Miranda with unveiled disgust. “You haven’t even
seen her and already you love her more than you love us. She’s the perfect star
you always wanted—or will be till she gets too close, too real. God forbid she
should turn out to have a mind of her own—”

“Leave him alone, Mir,” Sandy said, unexpectedly stirred by his
father’s grief; though perhaps more moved by the sight of Poppy in the alley,
twisted and in a state of despair he knew was no advertising gimmick, no
hypnotropic act. “Pop, we’ll find her. We’ll find that baby. Miranda doesn’t
know what she’s saying; she’s all spun out on her own smell.”

“
You’re
going
to find her?” said Ferdinand, crushing his kelpie on the orange carpet. “Is
this Santiago speaking? What was your old motto, Sandy?
‘Turn
Off, Tune Out, Drop In’?
”

 
“You little spaz. I’m not the reason we folded.”

“Oh, sure, blame it on Mom now that she can’t defend herself. Do
you really believe that?”

Sandy
’s cheeks burned. He looked away, his lip
twitching. But he wouldn’t show his humiliation; he wouldn’t show a thing.

“The fact is,” Ferdinand went on in his squeaky voice, “we could
have carried on without her. It was a tragedy, but hey, that’s what pulls the
ratings. Five of us was plenty enough—and you, too, Corny. Dad could have
remarried once things cooled down. There’s plenty of babes out there who could’ve
been as pop as Marjorie. Maybe popper.”

“Easy for you to say,” Alfredo moaned.

“But we couldn’t do it without you, Sandy. You
deliberately
blew
it apart. Mom would have wanted us to carry on. She was
into
the
wires. But you, you stupid druggie wimp, you took her death as the excuse you’d
been looking for. You turned it into a cheap and easy chance to grab your
freedom. You make me sick, Sandy, offering to find the baby. You pulled out
years ago. Left Alf with the responsibility of raising us. So you can just
stay out of it now.”

“That’s being slightly cruel, Ferdi,” Miranda said. “Slightly.”

“No,” said Ferdinand. “If anything, it’s too soft. What do you
say, Sandy?”

“I’m afraid to open my mouth. I don’t want to get your flying
bullshit in it.”

“All right, that’s enough!” Alfredo cried. “Shut up, all of you!”

The children fell silent, uncomfortably aware that they had been
slipping into the old situational tropes again: cruel banter, character
assassination, spurious motive plumbing, crude comebacks. Ah, the good old days
were here again, without the broadcasting to make it all pay for itself. It
dawned on him that they were all RO now. For all Ferdi’s talk, he left the
airwaves to Poppy alone.

Alfredo pursed his lips and gazed at the surface of his desk. “We’ve
all made mistakes. The biggest I made was getting into this business. You’re
right, Miranda, I’ve never been happy here, playing executive. Once I thought . . . 
well, it was hard for me to keep on without your mother. But I think maybe now’s
the time to try again. I’ve still got some power in Hollywood. I can use it to
make the world safer for my granddaughter—as soon as I find her, I mean.”

“So who’s going to take care of the business, Dad?” asked
Ferdinand. “You’ve got a seascraper to look after now. You can’t just drop it.”

Alfredo gave Sandy a questioning look.

“Oh, no,” he said. “I’ve got my own business. The plantation
takes all my time.”

Lies.

“Can’t you help out here for a little while, Sandy? So I can
devote myself to looking for Calafia? I pray to God it won’t take long. I could
use you here, son, if you’re willing. I’ll teach you what I know, though it’s
not much.”

“Let
me
find
her,” Sandy said.

Ferdinand scoffed. “You’re hopeless.”

Sandy
turned away, as he had in the past, cursing
them for the way they made him feel. They didn’t appreciate his talents and
never had. Wrapped up in themselves, groping at old roles, each of them
grabbing for star billing, stealing the scene even when no one was watching.
His father was the aging hero, striking out through dangerous territory to
rescue a baby girl. Sandy supposed he might have been guilty of the same
motivations. He told himself he genuinely wanted to help, but he didn’t think
that was possible here. Too many egos in the way.

“Talk about babies,” he heard Ferdinand say as he walked out and
closed the door behind him. The party sounds, the smell of osmodelics beckoned.
He needed to get lost in the crowd; he needed a heavy-duty mind change.

He needed Dyad.

Dancers moved with erratic grace on a circular floor of patterned
marble. The Reverend Governor occupied a dais in the center of the floor,
sanctifying the crowd with a swinging gold censer, sipping champagne. Where
Thaxter smiled down with particular emphasis, Sandy saw Dyad’s hair and tiara.
He headed toward her, stumbling over heels. He hadn’t danced in several years,
but even recent knowledge of the archaic steps was useless for finding a
passage through the intricate, unpredictably whirling crush. They were doing
the Chaotic Attraction.

Dyad hopped, backslid, then rushed, spinning, toward him, one hand
joined with that of a tall, sepulchral young man with unfashionably pale skin,
jet black hair, and thin lips cosmetically crimsoned. Sandy, backing off,
collided with a bejeweled old woman and her adolescent partner. By the time he’d
worked himself free with apologies, the dance had ended and he heard Dyad
calling his name.

“Sandy!” she cried. “Over here!”

No avoiding them now. He put on a smile and faced her partner,
submitting to an old rush of jealousy.

“Sandy, you remember Raimundo Navarro-Valdez?”

Raimundo’s eyes flashed, and not with amusement. He kept the same
expression, keen as ever, his lips like twin razors grown sharper with the
years. His eyes bespoke a mind even narrower than his mouth.

“Yo,” said Sandy, putting out his hand.

Raimundo refused the gesture, instead bending slightly at the waist,
tapping the heels of his polished black boots sharply together, then returning
his full attention to Dyad. One of his hands remained around her waist, in a
touch that was light yet possessive.

Dyad said cheerfully, “Raimundo and I are getting married next
month.
That’s
why I’m not sending anymore.” She shrugged.
“Actually, I’m not even receiving. Raimundo’s family doesn’t believe in
any
wires.”

Sandy
felt a cold surge in his stomach. Undertow.
“Married?”

Raimundo smiled for the first time in Sandy’s memory. “An
antiquated tradition, but one that still finds followers in the Old World.”

“Which old world is that, dude? And what’s wrong with the new
one?”

Raimundo ignored him, still smiling at Dyad.

“We’re not totally old-fashioned,” said Dyad with a wink at Sandy. “I mean, it
is
an open marriage.”

Raimundo’s smile vanished. “Open? In what way?”

“I think you two’d better talk that one over,” said Sandy, the words scalding his mouth. He backed off as though wading from a riptide. This
was why he’d fled to Humbo, wasn’t it? People got so weird on you; situations
kept inventing themselves, even without a board of paid consultants. “Later,
kids. ‘Grats to you both.”

“But Sandy,” Dyad called, “we were supposed to get together
tonight. Just like old times.”

This was too much for him. He fled through the crowd as fast as he
could and finally found a couch in a relatively quiet corner, near a dark
window sheltered from the brunt of the waves. There he sat, staring at his
reflection in the dark glass, becalmed in a mental Sargasso.